No Fear of War - Starts July 16th, 1945

EXCERPT OF TELEPHONE CALL BETWEEN OAK RIDGE FACILITY AND WHITE HOUSE, 2300 HRS, JULY 16TH, 1945

"What do you mean: it didn't work?"

"Sir at this stage we do not know what has gone wrong, and it is a risky procedure to enquire as to how it has failed."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Sir, my father always told me never to return to a lit firework if it had failed to go off..."

"Whats your point, Doctor Oppenheimer?"

"The point, Mr President, is that this is the biggest lit firework in the world, and I don't know why it did not go off."

END EXCERPT
 
Summer 1945

"We didnt need the new weapon to take out the Germans, but we need it now!"

"I know that General but there is nothing to be done now but stick to the plans you have drawn up"

"We are estimating serious casualties, both military and civilian, if we are forced to invade the Home Islands"

"God looks upon us all in this endeavour General. He knows what is at stake and will judge us accordingly"

"Very well Sir.... Senators, my fellow Officers, this is the final full briefing for Operation Olympiad - the invasion of the remaining Japanese strongholds in Asia, Southern Korea, and the Home Islands. This is a combined operation with the Free French, Dutch, and British/Anzac forces. We also expect that the Soviets will make a land-grab in the area of Manchuria as Japanese resistance crumbles. However we have not been able to secure any form of timetable from the Soviets as to when this will occur."
 
Winter 1945

Photo: The ruins of Tokyo. President Truman stands with Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower on the site of what was formerly the seat of government in Japan. Flags snap in a cold breeze - British, American, French, and a small Japanese flag, like one a child might have waved at a dignitary, is pushed into the cold hard earth below them.

"Was it worth it?" Truman felt obliged to ask as they gingerly stepped over the rubble.

"Mr President we lost good men to take these islands in the name of freedom and our security - it was worth it but I would never want to pay that price again" said Eisenhower, quiet but firm.

"Total casualties? Ours and theirs?" The President had not yet received the full tally.

"American Military casualties were at the upper end of pre-invasion estimates, Mr President. Shockley predicted up to 4 million casualties and I am pleased to say that we have managed to avoid reaching that figure. However we have lost 3.1 million US Soldiers killed or permanently wounded. Civilian casualties have reached 25 million but of course both those numbers are growing daily"

Ah yes, the suicides. Faced with the loss of their own lives, the elderly generals had gone to the Palace of the Emperor and requested that he lead by example. He had refused. He had died. The generals defending the battered towns of Japan had gone to meet their opposite numbers to arrange surrender - and blown themselves and their captors to pieces with grenades.

That signalled the bloody final phase of the conflict - the individual kamikaze rushes of an entire nation. Japanese soldier in POW Cages rushed their guards en masse, being shot down in the tens and hundreds, but eventually clawing down the wire and clawing down the men through weight of numbers. Prisoners were now kept blindfolded and shackled, dressed in bright orange to make them easier to see.

In the towns and villages, even women and children would rush towards tanks and patrols with petrol bombs, from doorways, alleys and fields. The American soldiers were doing their best but the attacks showed little sign of abating, every day, every division in Japan was sending a report up the line with another attack.

"What are we doing here, General? Most of the people want to get on with their lives but for a sizeable amount the war is not over! How do we rule this country? How do we pass it on to a new generation?"

"The political forces in this country are quite marginalised sir, with the exception of a large Communist Party. We need to make sure that we put in place a viable democratic government before we leave."

"We can't just leave this place alone!" MacArthur broke his silence.

"If we stay, we will end up sending bodies home for 50 years" Eisenhower offered his opinion.

"I concur. Generals, I want to see American forces out of Japan by 1950 at the latest. In that time I want to see a democratic government established"
 
1970

DIARY OF AN AMERICAN MILITARY ADVISOR TO THE INDIAN FORCES, FOUND BY CHINESE INFANTRY ON A BODY IN KASHMIR

How does the world look now?

They never did get the bomb working... something to do with the Strong Nuclear Force... I never was much of a scientist.

The legacy of the Japanese War was like a ton of bricks on the American Psyche. The suicide attacks continued up to the day we left the place. The few we got alive, and got talking, surprised us all. They were not loyal to Hirohito, or to any heir. They were not especially communist, either. They simply wanted us to leave. Once we did, the same types of people ended up on both sides of the new conflict - The South East Asian Civil Wars.

Vietnam, Korea, Japan, China. The entire region was riven by conflict between communists backed by the Soviets, and democrats backed up by the Western Allies. The world was becoming polarised - in every country Communist Parties were gaining in numbers while in the Communist countries dissent was ruthlessly crushed.

We watched China fall to the Communists. In Japan the Soviets had seen what happened to us and would not directly invade. Japan ended up a mixed government much to the surprise of everyone. Korea was partitioned - the North Communist and the South 'Free'. By the time it came round to Vietnam the America public had seen enough war. The draft was rejected by over 3/4 of the population. No Army meant No War. And so we watched Vietnam fall to the Communists despite every arms shipment we could spare.

Tensions continued to rise between the Soviets and the West. We formed NATO, re-armed the West Germans, co-opted in the Spanish and Portugese, persuaded the Swedes and Finns into it.

The Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact and invited every guerilla movement in the world to 'sign here for free guns'. Many did. In Europe, groups like the IRA and the RAF, divided by politics but united in common enemies, joined logistical forces and attacked each-others targets across Europe.

African rebels, desperate for freedom, took the Soviet shilling, took their guns and advisors, and turned on the white farmers and their rival tribes. The clans that the Soviets saw potential in were favoured with tanks - manned by Soviet troops of course. The designated victims were told 'fall in or die'. Western Colonial regimes found themselves under attack from insurgent forces which the Soviets barely bothered to disguise their links to.

The West found few friends in Africa outside the white settlers in the South, now a heavily armed enclave that received more refugees daily. There was talk of expelling the black population from the area they controlled - South Africa, Rhodesia, parts of Namibia and Botswana.

In Latin America, similar things were occuring. American forces backed up rulers of questionable mandate and kept an uneasy peace. A popular uprising in Cuba was quelled at the cost of a permanent American garrison, but by and large South America remained part of the 'West'.
 
Breaking point

This is where my writing ends (kind of)...

What could you see happening from here?

The State of play:

Latin America dominated by America but not quiet

Africa in the balance between Soviet-backed mass movements on one side and Colonial governments and White Settlers on the other.

Asia: China Communist, Vietnam too. Japan a neutral, ravaged country with no will to take a side. Korea partitioned.

Europe suffering from co-ordinated terror groups which have widespread support from disaffected populations.
 
This is where my writing ends (kind of)...

What could you see happening from here?

The State of play:

Latin America dominated by America but not quiet

Africa in the balance between Soviet-backed mass movements on one side and Colonial governments and White Settlers on the other.

Asia: China Communist, Vietnam too. Japan a neutral, ravaged country with no will to take a side. Korea partitioned.

Europe suffering from co-ordinated terror groups which have widespread support from disaffected populations.

I definitely see a North Korea attacking the South, with or without Soviet support. I don't know if the Americans would aid the South with anything other than arm shipments, it really gauges on the true state of American politics.


I also see some sort of small-scale OTL Vietnam War somewhere...
Not sure where, though. Possibly Ireland, due to the IRA getting significant arms from the Soviets.
 
The American people have rejected large scale military involvement in Vietnam, and it is regarded as political suicide to suggest it elsewhere.

That said, the American Navy and its carriers, and Elite land forces are frequently deployed to assist allied operations as they represent a lower risk of casualties. Special Forces in the West are suspected in the Soviet world as carrying out strategic sabotage on the Trans-Siberian Rail and Pipe lines, as well as the tanker accident in 1969 that blocked the Straits of Bospurus for a year, stopping the Black Sea Fleet from deploying in assistance of Arab Forces in the Middle East.

The Tomahawk missile came online in 1974 and immediately the rates of 'industrial accident' in Soviet-backed states rose.

So it is entirely inevitable that N Korea, backed by Soviet and Chinese forcers, does attempt to take control of the South, and it is possible that the USA's hi-tech strategic forces can make life difficult for them, since this is the thing they train for the most.

As for Ireland - Ireland in this AH would need a thread of its own! The Officials were seen as unable/unwilling to fight the Brits in 69-70... but put 25-50 Soviet training officers into Donegal, Sligo, Armagh, Louth, plus early SAMs and AK's... they might have had the will-power and the PIRA might never have existed at all. The Southern Government would never have supported them however and it is more doubtful that they would have had support from as wide a section of the population. I don't think that the British would have lost NI without a large scale political/popular sympathetic/problematic movement in the UK mainland
 
First problem is your timetable -- Operation Downfall wasn't suppose to start till Novembre with operation Olympic being the invasion of the southern Islands. & Operation Cornet being the invasion of Tokyo Bay in March 1946 .
Have everything delayed due to the November typhoon & Given several Months of Fighting,
Your scene in Tokyo would be Fall 1946, NOT winter 1945.

Also given a extra 6 months of Bombing, I doubt the Mass Population Suicide attacks.
 
Downfall

The point made by DuQ is well taken, and in fact should give a bit of insight into what might have happened. Had the Japanese civilian population resisted the way you suggest (extremely unlikely, but that is another thread I suspect) during Olympic (Kyushu), it isn't difficult to imagine the US 'postponing' Coronet and bombing/blockading/etc. Honshu till resistance weakened beyond the ability of the local population to offer a significant fight. Starvation would have done the job quite quickly, and disease (plague, etc.) were always a threat to the Japanese population. This was one of the reasons that the Navy's original blockade plan (the one that Leahy was so fond of) was rejected, though given the kind of casualties you are discussing, it might have been revisited.

As for those casulaties, 3 million dead or permanently wounded? You are likely to be an order of magnitude too high, but once again...that is probably a topic for another thread.
 
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